270 scolopacidjE. 



vious days; on each of which, several birds, on being sprung 

 by the dog, soared high into the air and made the bleating 

 noise peculiar to the breeding-season. The nest, exposed though 

 it be, is not easily discovered by the uninitiated. Many years 

 ago I accompanied a friend to the mountain bogs to look for 

 snipes' nests, that the eggs might be added to his collection, 

 when, after searching for a long time, and about to leave the last 

 bog, one was discovered ; — but only by my friend putting his 

 foot in it, and crushing the whole of the four eggs ! Thus ended 

 the hopes of the poor snipe in that brood and, at the same time, 

 our nesting expedition. A dog-breaker told me of his springing 

 young snipes on the mountain on the 18th of April, 1832. It is 

 extremely interesting to visit the breeding-haunts of this bird 

 when the two notes peculiar to the season, in addition to the 

 drumming or bleating, may be heard. For half an hour at a 

 time I have listened to the almost incessant bleating, and if the 

 birds be breeding to so late a period as I have heard it (the end 

 of July), there is ample time for two broods in the year. With 

 reference to the two different notes of the snipe in the breeding- 

 season, it is perhaps necessary to explain that the piping note 

 well observed to resemble the sound " peet" repeated,* and that 

 which has been likened to the sound of the word " tinker, uttered 

 in a sharp shrill tone,"t are meant : — the former I have generally 

 heard during the bird's ascending flight, and the latter chiefly from 

 the ground. Late on a lovely summer evening (18th of Juue, 

 1843) I watched for a longtime a snipe that was drumming, &c, 

 and remarked that it was occasionally joined by another for a 

 short period, the latter, believed to be the female, always retiring 

 to a boggy part of the hill suited to its nest : the other never 

 alighted. Whether this bird was high or low in the air, the 



* Note to White's ' Selborne,' by the Hon. and Rev. Wm. Herbert, p. 167. 

 Bennett's edit. 



t The writer in London's ' Magazine of Natural History,' vol. ii. p. 144, from 

 whom this is borrowed (Mr. Yarrell writing under the initials H. V. D.), remarks 

 that this call is uttered on the snipe's ascending flight, and Sir Wm. Jardine ('Brit. 

 Birds,' vol. iii. p. 180) mentions its piping among the herbage. 



